being concealed, only death can come to you unless I assist you. You understand?”

“Perfectly. This is a trap where a man may be drowned like a rat in a hole. The place is foetid with the black mud of the Thames.”

“Exactly,” she answered. Then she added, “Now tell me, are you prepared to make a compact with me?”

“A compact? Of what nature?” I inquired, much surprised.

“It will, I fear, strike you as rather strange, nevertheless it is, I assure you, imperative. If I rescue you and give you back your life, it must be conditional that you accept my terms absolutely.”

“And what are those terms?” I inquired, amazed at this extraordinary speech of hers.

“There are two conditions,” she answered, after a slight pause. “The first is that you must undertake to make no statement whatever to the police regarding the events of last night.”

She intended to secure my silence regarding the tragedy. Was it because that she herself was the actual assassin? I remembered that while I had reclined upon the silken couch in that house of mystery this startling suspicion had crossed my mind. Was that same cool, sympathetic palm that had twice soothed my brow the hand of a murderess?

“But there has been a terrible crime—a double crime committed,” I protested. “Surely, the police should know!”

“No; all knowledge must be kept from them,” she answered decisively. “I wish you to understand me perfectly from the outset. I have sought you here in order to rescue you from this place, because you have unwittingly fallen the victim of a most dastardly plot. You are blind, defenceless, helpless, therefore all who have not hearts of stone must have compassion upon you. Yet if I rescue you, and allow you to go forth again into the world, you may, if you make a statement to the police, be the means of bringing upon me a catastrophe, dire and complete.”

Every word of hers showed that guilt was upon her. Had I not heard the swish of her skirts as she crept from the room after striking down that unknown man so swiftly and silently that he died without a word?

“And if I promise to remain mute?”

“If you promise,” she said, “I will accept it only on one further condition.”

“And 

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